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Abd Al Karim Haj Ismail Measurement of the Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum between 500 TeV and 100 PeV with IceTop Abd Al Karim Haj Ismail Gent University Academic Year 2014 - 2015 2 3 Measurement of the Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum between 500 TeV and 100 PeV with IceTop Abd Al Karim Haj Ismail Supervisor: Prof. Dirk Ryckbosch Thesis submitted to obtain the academic degree of Doctor of Science: Physics Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science Gent University Academic Year 2014 - 2015 4 Members of the examination committee: Prof. Dirk Ryckbosch (UGent) Prof. Nick Van Eijndhoven (VUB) Dr. Serap Tilav (University of Delaware - USA) Prof. Sven De Rijcke (UGent) Prof. Philippe Smet (UGent) Prof. Jan Ryckebusch (UGent) Dr. Athina Meli (UGent) 5 In Memory of My Father 6 Acknowledgment The completion of this PhD is the most challenging activity in my life. Numerous people, over the last couple of years, have helped and supported me towards the end of this long journey. So; It is time to look back and thank all of them: I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Prof. Dirk Ryckbosch for giving me the opportunity to work in a big international collaboration, The IceCube Neutrino Observatory. Thank you Dirk, It has been an honor to be in your group. I appreciate all your encouragement, trust, ideas and the big effort to make this PhD possible. I would like to thank all members of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. I enjoyed working with all of you. Special thanks for my colleagues in the IceCube group in Gent (Tom, Sam, Mathieu, Matthias, Sander, Ola and Athina) you were part of the story, thank you all. I would like to thank my office mates Arne, Tom, Sam and Igor for all the discussion and help. I hope you enjoyed my presence in the office, at least I did. Special thanks goes to Tom Feusels for his patient, the long discussion and the enormous help since the beginning of my work. Also, Special thanks goes to Sam De Ridder for reading the very first draft of this thesis, and the daily discussion. I would like to thank my colleagues in the cosmic ray group and all members of the IceCube collaboration for the great discussion during all collaboration meetings and phone calls. I would like to thank all members of the exam committee for their guidance, reading and sugges- tions to improve this thesis. 7 :ú æ ÊK A« ð ú G A¯Y@ úÍ@ ' Ì èYë úΫ Ék@ à@ Iª¢J@ AÜÏ Ég. ð Q« é®J ¯ñKBñʯ ѪJË@ ÕæK èYÒm . ø YË@ é<Ë YÒm '@ éK @YK. . ék. PYË@ Q g ' k@ ð .ú æ K.Q« ú ¯ K Y Ë@ð YJË@ g @ñKA¿ áK Y Ë@ ú G A¯Y@ ©J Ô . úÍ@ QºË@ ËAm . ÐY®K@ à@ Xð@ « × g × B . éK @YJ.Ë@ YJÓ ú G ñÔ Xð ú æ.KAg. úÍ@ @ñ®¯ð áK Y Ë@ H. AîD Ë@ YÒm ð ñÔ YÒm ,YK ñk. X@Q£ :Q»YËAK . × g Q Þ Ì .QK Y ®Kð éJ.m É¿ AªJ Ô . ú æÓ ÕºË áºËð è J » ZAÖ B@ àBAJë ©J Ò m. '@ Q»X ú æ ª g Ï g g ' Ék@ ú G @QK à@ ÕÎ AÜ A£ ø Y Ë@ (é<Ë@ éÔ P YÔ @) ú Í AªË@ ø Y Ë@ð úÍ@ QºË@ ËAm . ÐY®K@ à@ Xð@ IÊÒm ' úæË@ (Õç' QÓ) éJ ËAªË@ úGYË@ð úÍ@ ÈññÓ QºË@ .ɪ¯ ZA AÓð é<Ë@ PY¯ áºËð ék. PYË@ èYë úΫ .@Q ª úGA JK.PAÒ» AÒêÔgP@ð AÒêË Q®«@ ÑêÊË@ , éJ jJË@ð ZA¢ªÊË '@QÓP ÕæJ» Y®Ë :úG@ð ú×@.á J Ë @Q ®Ë@ . × à@ é<Ë@ ÈA@ .QK Y ®JË@ð Ñ«YË@ É¿ úΫ(é<ËXð YËAg ,ù®¢Ó ,YÒm ) Z@Q«B@ ú G ñk@ úæ@B ú æK@AÒ» áÓ @PY ¯ ÑêÊÒm'ð éÊK AªË@ áÓ ÑîEñºË hñÊ éJk. ðPð QÔ« Qº@ ð AÒ» . èAQK ð éJ.m' AÜ Ï ÕºËAÓ@ ® m' . éJ ËðñÖ Ï@ - ZAÖÞ @ ) ZAJ.kB@ øX Bð@ ð éÖÞ éJ ËAªË@ úGPX é®J ¯Pð úæk. ðP úÍ@ QºË@ ËAm'. ÐY®K@ à@ Xð@ . I. mÌ'@ ð Ñ«YË@ É¿ úΫð Õ»Q.ð ÕºJJ.m× úΫ Õ»Qº@ à@ Xð@ ,úGA Jk É¿ÕæK@ ,( àAJk - ÉJ @ - YÔg@ ß Q × ß ©J ¢ @ à@ úæÖ @ ð AÒ» ú æ @PX è ¯ ÈCg ÕºJ« Õç' @YË@ ú Í AªB ú G ñm A à@ úæÖ @ .ú Í èñÒJÓY¯ ø Y Ë@ Ï .ÉJ.®JÖ @ ú ¯ ½ËX á« Õº ñ ªK ÉJ «AÖÞ @ h. Ag Õç' QºË@ YJ.« 8 Contents Contents i 1 Cosmic Rays 5 1.1 The First Century . .5 1.2 Cosmic Ray Physics . .8 1.2.1 Energy Spectrum . .8 1.2.2 Composition . 13 1.2.3 Sources . 15 1.2.4 Acceleration . 19 1.2.5 Propagation . 22 1.3 Extensive Air Showers . 24 1.3.1 Detection of Extensive Air Showers . 27 1.3.2 Some Recent Experiments . 30 2 IceCube and IceTop 35 2.1 IceCube . 35 i ii CONTENTS 2.2 IceTop . 39 2.2.1 IceTop Tank . 39 2.2.2 Digital Optical Module (DOM) . 40 2.2.3 Deployment . 42 2.2.4 Data Acquisition . 45 2.3 Physics Goals of IceTop . 52 2.3.1 Energy Spectrum and Chemical Composition . 52 2.3.2 Solar Physics with IceTop . 54 2.3.3 Vetoing IceCube Events . 54 2.3.4 High pT Muons . 54 2.4 Environment Effects . 55 2.4.1 Atmosphere . 55 2.4.2 Snow . 57 3 Simulation 61 3.1 CORSIKA . 61 3.2 Hadronic interaction models . 62 3.3 Mass production . 64 3.3.1 Resampling . 64 3.4 Detector simulation . 66 4 Air Shower Reconstruction 69 CONTENTS iii 4.1 Reconstruction Tools . 69 4.1.1 Shower COG . 70 4.1.2 Plane Fit . 70 4.1.3 Lateral Distribution Function (LDF) . 71 4.2 Snow Correction . 77 5 Event Selection and Energy Estimation 81 5.1 Event Selection . 81 5.1.1 Level 1 . 82 5.1.2 Level 2 . 83 5.2 Effective Area . 84 5.3 Performance . 88 5.3.1 Data MC Comparison . 90 5.4 Determination of the Primary Energy . 95 5.4.1 Energy Bias and Resolution . 101 6 Energy Spectrum 105 6.1 Flux Determination . 105 6.2 Systematic Uncertainties: . 108 6.2.1 Snow Correction Uncertainty: . 109 6.2.2 VEM Calibration Uncertainty: . 110 6.2.3 Interaction Model Uncertainty: . 111 iv CONTENTS 6.2.4 Mass Composition Uncertainty: . 112 6.3 Energy Spectrum Results . 112 7 Discussion and Outlook 115 7.1 Comparison with Previous IceTop Measurements . 115 7.2 Comparison with Measurements from Other Experiments . 119 7.3 Outlook . 121 A CORSIKA Steering File 123 B Energy Calibration 125 B.1 Proton: . 126 B.1.1 First Zenith Band (0:9< cos(θ) ≤ 1:0): .................... 126 B.1.2 Second Zenith Band (0:8< cos(θ) ≤ 0:9):................... 128 B.2 Iron: . 130 B.2.1 First Zenith Band (0:9< cos(θ) ≤ 1:0): .................... 130 B.2.2 Second Zenith Band (0:8< cos(θ) ≤ 0:9):................... 132 C Energy Bias and Resolution 135 C.1 Proton: . 135 C.1.1 First Zenith Band (0:9< cos(θ) ≤ 1:0): .................... 135 C.1.2 Second Zenith Band (0:8< cos(θ) ≤ 0:9):................... 137 C.2 Iron: . 138 C.2.1 First Zenith Band (0:9< cos(θ) ≤ 1:0): .................... 138 CONTENTS v C.2.2 Second Zenith Band (0:8< cos(θ) ≤ 0:9):................... 140 D Livetime 143 E The Energy Spectrum 145 Glossary 149 List of Figures 155 List of Tables 161 Bibliography 163 vi CONTENTS Introduction Cosmic rays are very energetic charged particles originate in the outer space, travel at nearly the speed of light and strike the Earth from all directions. The main constituents of cosmic rays are the nuclei of atoms. They also include high energy electrons, positrons, and other subatomic particles. They have first been discovered in 1912 by the Austrian physicist Victor Hess. Although their discovery was more than a century ago, a lot of fundamental questions about their origin, propagation and acceleration mechanisms in the universe are not answered yet. Measurements of the cosmic ray energy spectrum from different cosmic ray experiments showed that it follows a power law with some features. Although we do not have a perfect interpretation of what causes these breaks in the energy spectrum, they may indicate a transition in the composition and provide informations about the production processes and possible sources of these particles. A first change in the spectrum is observed around 4 × 1015 eV, generally called the knee. The knee structure can be explained, in current measurements of the energy spectrum and composition, as a rigidity dependent leakage of cosmic rays from the Galaxy. Another feature called the ankle occurs at around 3 × 1018 eV, where the contribution of extragalactic cosmic particles dominates in this part of the spectrum. A strong suppression in the energy spectrum is observed at energies above 6 × 1019 eV. This effect is called the GZK cutoff. At energies higher than the GZK cutoff, cosmic ray particles lose energy through the interaction with the cosmic ray microwave background. 1 2 CONTENTS Cosmic rays are a sample of solar, galactic and extragalactic matter. Solar cosmic particles origi- nate from the sun during solar flares with energies below 1010 eV. However, low energy cosmic rays have a strong anti-correlation with solar activity. Up to 4 × 1015 eV (the knee), cosmic rays are cer- tainly from a Galactic origin (e.g.
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